Keeping the postal service up & running, one stamp at a time. Usually silly, sometimes cranky, occasionally a mix of the two.

Washington

13 postcards this time, all toon-related. Still playing catch-up, so while some of these are newly-received, some came in months & months ago. We have a combination of Postcard Forum tags, and incomings from postal pals of mine. Let’s get started, so we can get finished!

I love this Disney duck art, with Christmas greetings in Swedish. It came to me from Finland via Postcrossing Forum. I remember it was a very confusing parcel to receive: an envelope filled with many postcards, each with a tiny message denoting a different Postcrossing tag. This user had tagged me many times in different threads, all at once, did not message me to let me know, and surprised me with all of this. I keep track of whom I’ve tagged (since my memory is not so good), so that I do not overdo tagging the same person. In any case, though, I do love this postcard.

Hey, Doraemon! The card came to me from Indonesia, and the stamps & stickers tie right in, so you’ll have to scroll down & check them out. The sender writes:

Doraemon is my favorite cartoon too because they are funny and taught us about friendship. My fave character is Nobita & Shisuka.

Peanuts time! Cindi in Hawaii knows that I love the oldest versions of the characters, & she has sent me two of my favorite cards, featuring Pigpen, Lucy, & Schroeder. The scans of the backs down below show a beautiful patchwork of related stamps & stickers.

An extra serving of Peanuts, from a post-pal in Tokyo, Japan:

I love Spirited Away. Just saw it on the big screen again a few months ago for one of those two-night return engagements that happen sometimes, and I was blown away all over again. This card came to me from the same postcard pal as the one right above it.

Mickey and his band also came to me from Japan, in a tag in which we were to list the characters we’d like to receive. Horace Horsecollar was on my list, and as you’ll see at the bottom of the post, the card’s sender was surprised by my obscure choices.

Totoro here came to me from Russia, but the sender isn’t talking about Ghibli:

When I was a child, on TV on Saturday morning showed Disney cartoons. One of my favorites was Chip ‘n Dale.

The postcard teeming with Misters Men & Little Misses came to me from yet another postcard pal, this one in Brighton, England. Don’t miss the matching stamps down below!

The kitty packing heat was sent to me from Seattle, Washington, and the sender writes:

I don’t know the cat on the front of this card, but Strawberry Shortcake was a favorite of mine, back in the day.

She mentions Ms. Shortcake because she affixed a sticker of that character on the back of the card. You’ll not see her in this post, because by this time I had scanning fatigue, and that kind of thing just doesn’t make the cut. I’ll just share that it was an older version of the character, in shorts, flip-flops, and a floppy beach hat.

This Hello Kitty card did make the cut. It’s yet another card from Japan, and the back has great stickers, stamps & washi tape which, along with the card’s message, you can see below.

These funny little sea creatures came from Russia. The sender tells me that she loves Kinder toys, and that she used to play with them with her older sister when she was a child.

That little mouse came to me from Berlin, Germany, and the sender tells me:

I’m a 28 year old Russian girl, moved to Germany recently. Before that I spent 2.5 years in Moscow working as an IT engineer. Now I live in the center of Berlin, Mitte district. My office is in crazy and fancy Kreuzberg! There is a cool graffiti on our office wall: Putin, Obama, and Merkel closing mouth, eyes, and ears!

Hey, I found that piece of street art!

I feel like this came from a more innocent time.

Let’s finally get to the previously mentioned stamps, stickers, washi tape, and messages. So much good stuff!

I love, love, love that little squirrel sticker. The pair of cats on blue are awesome, too.

Look at that cooool Totoro card! Be sure to scroll down & see the stickers on the back, too. A Postcrosser in Seattle, Washington sent this to me in a Postcrossing Forum tag trade.

Right next to Totoro is a scene from Singapore’svery colorful Haji Lane. I was able to request that card in another Postcrossing Forum tag–from the same person I’d received a similar card in this tag, a few months ago.

Then we go into the wild, sort of: Cameron Highlands, Malaysia. The sender tells me:

“Greetings from Malaysia–a very warm country in South East Asia (avg. temperature: 30C). Malaysia is a country with multiple cultures and religions. Despite what the news have said about us, we still live in perfect harmony and celebrate all festival together. I grew up in a small town call Cameron Highlands, a famous cool hill resorts which had average temperature of 16C throughout the year. It is famous for its tea growing, vegetables farming and flower nurseries. Now I live in the capital city–Kuala Lumpur. But I still visit my parents back in Cameron Highlands during holidays.

Panda time: it comes from China, in another PF tag trade.

Also from China is that colorful Shanghai skyline, sent to me by an Instagram friend who’d been noticing my postcard posts, and put out a call to his friends who would like to see postcards while he was traveling in China & Taiwan.

Oh, there’s a story behind that orca card. And by behind it, I mean regarding the back side.

I flipped the tag over to find a taped-on block of orca info printed out from Wikipedia. C’mon. After that, the sender jammed in a handwritten hi-how-are-you-hope-you-enjoy-this-card-take-care, and a scrawled hieroglyph of an initial. I know the card came from Seattle, Washington, because it was clear in the postmark (clear postmarks never being a guarantee), but I didn’t know the venue (Postcrossing Forum? swap-bot?), or the user name. I had to spend some time going through my inbox looking for possible senders of this card, then trying to match those possibilities with locations in their profiles. UGH!

I wish everyone using these sites would take greater care and PLEASE neatly print the following:

The date (postmarks are not always clear–or present)

Trade venue (Postcrossing Forum? swap-bot?)

Exact name of trade (many have similar names, and much trading is rapid)

User name (c’mon)

End rant, let’s go to Manila, Philippines. This card was received via Postcard United, and the sender tells me about “the Philippine jeepney–a unique mode of transportation here in my country.” They sound like an adventure!

Next, from Athens, Greece via a tag trade, comes the candy package, the contents of which are described by the sender as “ION Baloo, amazing butter candies.” Onto the back of the card, she glued a panel from a box of tea I assume she also likes. Scroll down & you’ll see it.

I got a colorful card & message from the Netherlands, in a regular Postcrossing incoming:

“I love the USA, I practically visit every year. I’ve seen quite a lot of it…last visit was to San Francisco, what a beautiful city! In daily life, I’m a nurse because I love to take care of people. It was like a calling for me.”

Another Postcrossing card: it’s the cannon, & it’s from a real estate agent in Moscow, Russia. He printed out his message & glued it to the card–I’m assuming it has to do with English skills. This reminds me of another card I received recently, which I guess I’ll include in a later post (if I don’t lose it).

Okay, time to look at all of the stamps, stickers, & stuff. The Totoro on the 1st image looks like a stamp, but is just part of the postcard printing. My favorite 3 stamps down here, in order of scrolling appearance, are the spoonbill (U.S.), the chicken (Singapore), and the flowers (Malaysia. How about for you?

This time around, I’m sharing some recently-arrived cards, as well as some much older ones that (as far as I know) I haven’t shared previously. Keeping track is hard!

The “World Famous Brighton Rock” card came from a postal pal in Brighton, Englandtoday–and today I learned “Brighton Rock!” I had to look that up online, because my friend was actually lamenting a familiar situation:

“As for Peanuts postcards, I’m no closer to finding any of them here, so I’ve had to cheat and make my own with stickers that I found in New York last month. Quite a few of the Hallmark shops where I would normally buy Snoopy stuff from had either shut down or no longer stocked Peanuts merchandise, which was a bit disappointing, but didn’t ruin my vacation!”

Another postal pal, Cindi in Hawaii, knows exactly how to get Peanuts postcards: throw down for mail order from the Charles M. Schulz museum in California! I love this new “It Was a Dark and Stormy Night” Snoopy card. Make sure you check in at the bottom of this post, for all of the wonderful stamps, stickers, & washi tape from the card’s back side.

The next card shows three guys I am always very, very, happy to see: The Three Caballeros. It was sent to me from Seattle, Washington, at the end of 2015 for a Postcrossing Forum “request a Disney card” tag, and I haven’t marked it as logged in this space. The sender drew a fun rubber ducky pic on the back, so be sure to scroll down for that.

Second set of cards begins with another card postmarked in December of 2015, from a Postcrosser in Hong Kong. She wrote:

“This is a new shop that just opened near my apartment in Hong Kong, and they were giving out some nice postcards. I hope you enjoyed some dim sum and egg tarts in Hong Kong. Egg tarts are my favorite! Also egg waffles. So good!”

I did indeed enjoy some dim sum while in HK (don’t recall if egg tarts were part of it), and I was in fact looking to buy an egg waffle maker while I was in town! That didn’t happen, but around the time I received this card, I received one as a gift! Made some egg waffles just last week, in fact.

That scary, scary monkey card might just have to get sent off to someone else. It came my way from the Netherlands in a Postcrossing Forum “ugly postcard” trade. I think this, and 2 or 3 other cards from today’s entry, had been serving as bookmarks! My poor book!

The snowy card next to the monkey is from a Postcrosser in Japan. This only goes back to September of 2016. The sender told me she lives in a small town in the mountains, and she doesn’t have any beach cards, so she decided to send me a snow card.

The last set starts with another snow card, this one recently received from Romaniavia Postcard United. The sender tells me:

“I love to spend time in the countryside, where life seems not to have changed in ages.”

We’ve got a food package next, this from another Postcrossing Forum tag, and sent to me from someone in Raleigh, North Carolina, who writes:

“My husband loves lychee and I love mochi. These were delicious. Ever had them? My parents tease me for loving mochi so much. It’s called dduk in Korean. They call me a dduk-bo which is essentially a person who loves dduk. Rice cakes freeze pretty well.

I think it was the weekend before I received this card last month that I’d just been buying fresh mochi treats in San Jose’s Japantown, so this was very timely.

Final card is another from who-knows-how-long-ago, a Postcrossing incoming from Mexico. There were, as you will see, Doraemon stickers on the back, and the sender explained:

“Here are a couple of Doraemon stickers I was given in Hong Kong at supermarket. Very nice place and yummy food! Anyways, this postcard is from my hometown, we have yummy food, too!”

Okay, that’s it for the fronts. I’ll mark them as logged now, so you won’t have to be bothered with them again. Now poke around the backsides–so many amazing finds down there this time!

I love this Taiwan Railway Journey postcard. Taiwanese bento are sold in quite a few places in my city–but I really think I need to take an extended trip to their homeland, for comparison purposes.

The card was sent to me via Postcard United, and the sender writes:

“Railroad lunch box is well-known, it’s delicious and inexpensive. People can only buy it on the train or at the train station.”

I’m not so impressed with the fortune cookies–and I’m not sure I knew La Choy even sold the things! You can go into most CVS stores around here & buy locally-manufactured fortune cookies (also available in various colors, as well as flat & fortune-less). Which ones do I choose? Well, I don’t! It’s a food package postcard, thanks to a Postcrossing Forum tag trade, and the sender is in Colfax, Washington. She writes:

“I hope I am not the only one who is amused by the fact that fortune cookies are not actually Chinese, nor English muffins, English; French toast, French; Danishes, Danish, etc. Since these do not contain chocolate, they are critter-safe. My dog, Max, loves them.”

I wonder whether she lets him eat his fortune.

Incredible India is another Postcard United incoming, and it came in to me from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India. Do you want to know what I just learned on Wikipedia? Thiruvananthapuram is the capital–and the largest city–in its state, and it has a sister city in the U.S.: Galveston, Texas. The card’s sender tells me:

“My hobbies being stamp collection, travelling places, water painting, gardening, enjoying soups, movies, etc. Have visited many places in India. We got many exotic sites. 🙂 Never been to another country. Wish to visit USA one day!! I like to have friend’s company when travelling. Just 1 or 2 friends.”

I chuckled a bit at the hobby of “enjoying soups.” I do have to admit, though, that particularly-good versions of sambar do indeed get me making yummy sounds.

Well, there’s a weird postcard. It’s via swap-bot, from an unassigned partner in the “postcard roulette” trade I’ve mentioned a couple of times lately. The sender chills me to the core when she says:

“Hello from Colorado where we expect it to be 4 degrees for the high temperature on Saturday. This is not normal. You’re my chosen one from the list of roulette people…wonder if anyone will choose me… 🙂 :I 😦 “

Yeah, when I was reading about the “get assigned one, choose another one from the list of participants” nature of the swap, I did indeed wonder whether someone would choose me. So now I know! I wonder if I will receive still more unassigned cards…

Finally, I got a Christmas card from my snail mail pal in Tokyo, Japan, from whom I just got some cooool mail yesterday! She writes she hopes we will be writing each other letters for years to come.

Mail call! And there were enough interesting lines from my correspondents this time, that I had a hard time deciding what to entitle today’s entry. You’ll see. The first two postcards are regular Postcrossing in-comings, and the second two were received via trades on Postcrossing Forum.

Hey, it’s a recipe card from Khabarovsk, Russia! The sender tells me:

“Blini is a traditional dish that is cooked on Maslenitsa. It is a holiday when people see off the winter.”

Yay, seeing off the winter! Good riddance, Buster!

And speaking of good riddance, Buster:

The little shore scene came to me from Hamburg, Germany, and here’s what the sender has to say:

“My dream is to travel times America. My husband does not like the country. But my daughter and I will eventually make round trip with no husband. He love the Greek island. I can not believe that there is such big houses with you, though I have been there.”

I am glad she clarified “round trip;” for a moment I thought she might just stay here, leaving her Mister to his Greek island.

The building surrounded by cyclists came to me from:

“…an 18-year-old girl from Taichung City, Taiwan. I will become a college student after the summer vacation. Because I don’t need to join the test in July, I have much time writing postcards now. It’s my pleasure to join the (Taiwan Meets the World) tag, it’s interesting for me. I’m a new member of Postcrossing, so I have lots of things to learn. Happy Postcrossing, hope you have a nice day!”

Look at all of that cake! It came to me from Xianyang, China, thanks to the Postcrossing Forum “China Meets the World” tag trade. The sender gives me greetings from China, and says:

“I’m a 13-year-old student…I love summer. 😛 But I hate the rain. It let me feels cold & upset. =I I had an exam last week but I’m not sure that I can get a nice grade…. If you want to try some Chinese food, hot pot is a good choice. It’s spicy but delicious.”

Look at the fish! That piece of art was created by a swap-bot member in Olympia, Washington, who entitled her piece “There’s Always a Bigger Fish in the Sea.” She describes her work:

“It’s mixed media with pencils, ink, water-color, & jelly roll pens. I sprayed it with a layer of clear acrylic, so I hope it makes it to you safely.”

Look at those beautiful deer! They came to me from a Postcrosser in Tainan, Taiwan, and she tells me:

“I’m an eighteen years old student in Taiwan. Painting and photography are my favorite, and I also watch movie and read novels in my free time.”

No Postcrossing/swap-bot action here: this is a great-big envelope I sent off to a friend!

The occasion is the Lunar New Year–and I did send a few specially-purchased Year of the Monkey goods–but as usual in the packets of madness I send out to friends, the “good stuff” is surrounded by a wealth of random bits I have accumulated for the purpose of amusement: stickers, trading cards, stuff that surfaces in fits of decluttering…all sorts of odd bits & ridiculousness.

The collage on the right is the back of the big envelope. On the front I have stamped the little Snoopy scene you see on the left. This uses all of the stamps I received in the “Snoopy Madness” order I shared recently in this space. I’ve been using the mailbox stamp in my postcards going out this week, but this is the first time I have used any of the others in the 4-stamp set.

I always look forward to hearing my friends’ reactions after they’ve received my li’l mail surprise packages. Not all people have the personality or intelligence to know how to react to this kind of fun, but this particular friend always reports that his office mates (ohh, yehhh, I send them to his office) are always amused & fascinated whenever these periodic mail days come.

Do you create wacky packages of your own, to add a little lunacy to the days of the people in your life? Tell me about it!

The card at top left came from a Postcrosser in Hong Kong, and she says its from a new shop that opened near her apartment: “they were giving out some nice post cards!” I took a look at the site, and saw an image similar to the postcard! The sender also tells me, “I hope you enjoyed some dimsum and egg tarts in Hong Kong. Egg tarts are my favorite! Also, egg waffles, so good!”

Hey, it’s the Three Caballeros! I love those guys! That came to me from Seattle, Washington, thanks to a Postcrossing Forum “Request a Disney Card” tag, in which participants were to list the Disney-related cards they would like to get. Would you like to see my list? Well, I will show you, anyway:

That bottom postcard depicts Palacio Municipal in Zapotlán, Jalisco, Mexico, and the Postcrosser who sent it lives in Ciudad Guzmán, Mexico. He has been Postcrossing for TEN YEARS! I didn’t even know it had been around so long. Speaking of Hong Kong, & things I like, he was given some Doraemon stickers at a supermarket in HK, and affixed them to the back of my postcard. You’ll see them below (they are shinier in real life).

A good round for stamps, stickers, & even drawings:

Those ink-stamped characters, the HK Postcrosser tells me, mean travel. The duck at the bottom traveled from Seattle.

“Touristy”-type postcards today, maybe not sent from the places they might indicate:

When I saw that Georgia card, with glittery lettering & background that barely register in this scan, I assumed it was from a swap-bot tacky postcard trade. Nope! It was for one called “not my state, not yours.” The sender lives closer to Richmond, Virginia. She writes:

“We like to visit a small mountain town in GA named Helen. It is a bit cheesy, but it is modeled after a Bavarian village.”

I know what she is talking about. I don’t know Helen, but here in California, we have our own cheesy town: Solvang.

That New York postcard, which you can see sports an old photo of the city, is another “not my state” arrival, this one from someone near Seattle, Washington. The sender writes:

“I would say I have never been to NY but technically I have–only saw the inside of the NYC Greyhound station about 2 in the morning. I will visit someday.”

Brr… the snowy card comes from Kežmarok, Slovakia, from a 15-year-old Postcrosser who writes,

“I like skiing and hockey. I like geology and history too. I collect minerals and fossils. My best item is the skull of cave bear.”

Finally, from Kaohsiung, Taiwan, comes that postcard of Angkor Wat. This is the most complicated lineage of a postcard today: it’s a postcard of Cambodia, sent from Taiwan, by a person who bought it in Vietnam! The sender tells me that, and then really catches my interest:

A busy postcard day, with cards flying off for both Postcrossing & swap-bot.

I made that Oreo postcard from a box of you-know-what; it’s for a swap-bot “create a postcard” trade, & it’s headed for Everett, Washington. I’m a little concerned. The person assigned to me as the recipient is very specific that she hates everything I love in life:

“…I’m really not a fan of cutesy, cartooney or animated things…I have very few dislikes…anime/kawaii/sanrio/cartoon themes, stickers…”

Just about everything–okay, absolutely everything–that inspires me to go crazy with a glue stick is cartoony in nature; even when I dress up a simple package, as I normally would have with this Oreo panel, it is with something cutesy & cartoony. You may have seen my past efforts on this blog:

So like I was saying, this lady makes me sad. I picture her in her home crafting studio, with lace, flowers, rusted metal & a soldering iron, picking up my charming Oreo postcard, & rushing to swap-bot to give me a poor rating. Ohhh, those swap-bot ratings & the terror they bring to peoples’ hearts. Are you a swap-botter? Do you know the terror of which I speak?

Onward…

The next two cards, both images of Italy, are for a different swap-bot trade, one called “not my country, not your country.” The first goes to Redlands, California; the second to Muar, Johor, Malaysia. Speaking of Italy & Malaysia: some people dream of going & eating pasta in Italy; you know where I want to go & gorge on noodles? Malaysia. And that’s what I told the recipient of that card.

Not far from Malaysia is Thailand, a country where I was eating noodles just a couple of weeks ago. I picked up some postcards there, including the Chiang Mai one above that I just sent off to a Postcrossing match in Heinola, Finland. Her profile mentioned loving travel, so I thought she might enjoy this..

OH, time for another problem case! Now, I am sure most people on Postcrossing are, like me, delightful people, but every once in a while, you run across someone who seems to care about nothing more than the specific postcards they expect to receive–nay, demand to receive. Take this user in Barcelona, Spain—por favor! Now, knowing that Postcrossing community guidelines state, “You can not make demands for specific postcards,” read this user’s profile:

“The postcards that I want in my collection are from cities (monuments, things that are in your city as beaches, mountains, and things that are in your city). No old blank postcards in black please. Or anything other than cities. I do not like other post, I do not post advertising or handmade. “

That’s it. Postcrossing can be a wonderful way to learn about other people, other places, other cultures–but all I learned about this person was her postcard demands. I feel like an unappreciated Santa Claus. I have been assigned such a profile in the past, & it made me feel sad then, too–I even checked whether the site offered reassignments or waivers. Anyhow, I sent this user the card with all of the views of California, and I felt sad sending her something so nice.

Finally, back to the delightful people! One of whom lives in Witten, Germany, and she says she loves books and animals. That prompted me to dig back into my long-neglected big box-o-book-cover postcards, where I found this cover of The Hundred and One Dalmatians. I told my fellow Postcrosser a dog story: how I took mine to the beach yesterday.

Sorry I didn’t have much to say today, it was a really uneventful postcard day. I’d like to hear about your so-called uneventful postcard days & swapping frustrations, too! Share!